Of Judgement and Mercy
Yesterday at mass I heard a very powerful homily on hudgement and mercy. The priest’s homily was focused on how we tend to “judge” in our daily lives and sometimes by doing this, we get labelled as being “judgemental” or “holier-than-thou” especially in this modern day and age. Society shuns upon people who make such “righteous judgement” on others. Even I myself at many a times have been “accused” of such sentiments by my peers or friends.
For the longest time ever it was a struggle to me. Why a struggle? Because I knew that I wasn’t so much judging about the person rather than the offence or the decision he took. But I could never explain this idea to others because I myself was not fully aware of this thought process.
The priest used the story of Jesus and the adulterar to explain this and I thought it was very poignant. While the pharasies no doubt were right in stoning the woman for the offence she commited, Jesus was able to seperate between individual and the sin. Sure she had a mistake ; she had cheated and it wasn’t like she was “wrongly accused” of doing so. But at the same time while Jesus did admonish her for her sin, he also extended mercy to her by forgiving her and holding no condemnation against her (neither do I condemn you).
That encounter is so prevalent in today’s culture isn’t it? We are told to be loving to the individual, and that if he tell the individual of his/her mistakes, we are being “harsh” or we are being “unfair” or even a “bigot” for that matter. We are accused of being narrow minded and having that “holier than thou” mentality when in actual fact we are just too corward to face facts and be honest with ourselves.
And that’s where mercy and judgement comes in and this is what the Church has always taught throughout history. The Church offers both judgement and mercy provided we are willing to be honest with ourselves and truly ask for repentence and forgiveness. God is not so much interested in punishing us as he is more in restoring us. The judgement is necessary for the purification process to start and without the purification process, how would we ever be better individuals for tomorrow?
So the next time you’re going to pass judgement on someone, remember to always isolate the individual from his/her action. The two are totally different. When you see it from that angle, it will change your perception of things.
Respect and belief
For weeks my young adults group at church were planning to to organize a talk on religious differences between Is lam and christianity, specifically educating and creating an awareness among our members on the differences between our religion and theirs. As I did not know much about the former religion, I decided to purchase a book on it, which would be fair and honest in its assessment and claims. I was recommended this book by my friend and I managed to read the entire book just in time for the discussion yesterday.
While there is much descrepencies in their religion, my thoughts for this entry is not to debate or debunk them. Everyone is and should be granted the freedom to religiously believe in their own creed. However I do think the problem arises when people confuse respect in belief.
Respect for one;s own religion does not automatically equate to belief. Doesn't mean that if I respect your religion, then I accept and believe whatever it is your religion preaches. And I think this is where the fundamental differences lies and much confusion and debate among believers themselves.
Respect and belief are verily two different things and they are certainly mutually exclusive. Hence the problem arises when people equate it to be the same ; when one religion superimposes its religious beliefs against another religion. That's when the issues start to creep in and the tensions arise.
But that's not what racial tolerance is all about. And this is where another confusion lays in society. When people talk about religion, they then begin to say things like "all religions are the same" and "all religions lead to the same path" and so own. While as nice as it sounds, making those statements are already crossing the "belief" line from the respect line. Suddenly you are equating my religion to yours, from a belief perspective and this is where it becomes a problem and gives rise to tension and hostility? Why? Because people are tempted to defend their faith, to make certain "corrections".
I think the best way to actually overcome this respect and belief paradox is to really know your own religion first. Without having a proper grasp of the authentic fundamentals that are taught in one's own religion, it gives room to debate and speculation and sadly, judgement and biasness. Knowing your own religion and living it faithfully without trying to impose it on others is a key to building a tolerant society.
Also, learning about other religions, not so much from a practice-belief scrutinizing perspective, but from a perspective of using the knowledge gained to further understand our neighbours will greatly help. Why? Because it gives us a sense of understanding as to why our neighbours do what they do. Man has always been afraid of the unknown and thus imposed upon themselves religious superstitious and folk tale to soothe their conscience, but now with books and the internet, it need not be the case anymore.
Yes sure, these things do take effort at the end of the day. After all why bother learning another religion's practices and beliefs? But I think by doing so, it allows us to really learn how to differentiate between respect and belief and that's crucial for any multicultural society to thrive.
Keeping the thoughts alive
May was quite a busy month for me. I realize that I didn't blog at all for the whole of last month. As I look back and reflect over the month of May, and attempt to justify my absence, I find that I could only come up with a few "lame" excuses , namely I was just quite tied up with my own life issues and at the same time, I was just too lazy to write anything down. However that is not to say that May was a quite or boring month, in fact, May was quite an eventful period for me. I shall try to sum up the events that happened in the month of May
Work
Work was starting to pick up the pace. The workload was growing and I spent a good portion of my time at work scheduling meetings and discussing process workflows with the clients. I have to admit, even though I have worked for the client organization for almost 3 years now, working with the upstream folks was a welcoming change for me. I found them to be somewhat proactive and their willingness to help was a plus point in my interactions with them. We culminated our work with a workshop to validate our processes and it was going great until the end we got screwed by the project sponsor. Well not so much "we" but more so "me" given that my process flows are actually new (unlike the others who were more involved in mapping the established processes into the new department) I had to approache the senior management team to obtain their conscent as well as they were also involved in the processes. And you know how it's like when you engage SMTs ; the process is dramatically slowed down, and there's really nothing much you can do about it.
In terms of the actual work though, I don't know...I'm finding work to be slightly boring these days, less challenging. I've requested for an overseas assignment and I just hope I get it.
Relationship
The love life is going great. Kate and I are growing stronger in our relationship and as the days pass by, I realize that we're learning more and more about each other. However I find the biggest difference in THIS relationship is that we both are making the effort to build up this relationship, and that our differences are more accepted by each other, rather than becoming an obstacle course for us to manouver.
Still I do believe that much more needs to be done, but I am confident that we are getting there, slowly, day-by-day. We've started to close our daily chat sessions with a short prayer, with me often leading us both into prayer and she coming in to offer up her intentions. I think the relationship is moving in the right direction!
Ministry
May started off with us having our annual LifeCamp. Sherman was awesome as always and I really felt this camp stirred the hearts of our young adults this time around. It was less rar-rar and more spiritual and reflective in nature. I have to admit we didn't plan as "hard" as we did for the previous one, but yet, somehow this camp turned out to be very meaningful for the participants. Sometimes I believe God has His way of turning hearts to him.
Well I guess that's all for now. I have been thinking of some stuff lately to write and reflect about, and perhaps when time permits, I will write down some of these things down. Until then, that's all from me....for now 
